Hans,

My compliments !
I like the veins, and agree on the brick-like color.
Thanks for this update.
BTW why did you cut the leaves ?

Jaap

Thank you,
Jaap;

You have made an important observation. Cutting leaves is inevitable in this dense mass cultivation. The leaves would grow straigtht into the high pressure metal halide lamp, thus taking away the light from the periphery.

Furthermore leaf cutting egalizes the different growth strength of stronger and weaker plants. I regularly inspect the plants and when I discover that one has reached the bloomable state I even cut some more of the older leves completely away - in order to create place for the leaves of weaker plants.

It is of no use for me if unusually strong overflyers suppress all others beside them (and perhaps finally proove to be producers of flowers of inferior quality) - if I bring it on the point I would even say: I want bloomable plants which are as small as possible - thus obtaining the highest yield of blooms and... plant selection potential thereof - that is it.

For the same reason I cut all emerging leaves from offsets away at some cm above the substrate - to maintain light penetrance and air circulation within the big leaf "stems" of each individual plant.

Hans-Werner

And,
Jaap;
The brick like color THAT was a good idea

Hans-Werner

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Hans,

Here is a silly question. Your pictures are always so beautiful. Your flowers all look a bit sparkly. Is that just an effect of the lighting or is there something on the flowers to make them have that extra bit of prettiness?

Katrina

Oh dear - I answered you privately - because I received your question via e mail -
now I like to copy for the forum community:
(The term sparkly that was simply GREAT)

Thank you for your message and your interest.

You have well observed.
I never heard of the term "sparkly" in this context but I understood immediately what you were referring to and I found your characterization of my photo files sooo amusing!
Thank you for that - seriously.

This effect (simply) origines from (re-)sharpening the image in its definite resolution after resizing the original image file.
I use the lowest degree (+1) for this kind of image manipulation from the menu of my MicroSoft PhotoEditor program of windows XpHome.
This effect makes some pictures look even somewhat artificial.
But it is an important tool, too: Against misuse of my image files.
Because further resizing yields files of obviously unacceptable quality.
And: I would recognize those immediately if used on trading platforms like Ebay.

On the other hand:
I want to encourage you to make a monocolor print of one flower portrait!
You will certainly be astonished - and print others, too, I presume

Kind regards
Hans-Werner

Hello Hans:

You are one lucky guy to be able to do all these crosses and bring these beauties to flower! I'm envious *grins*. I would love to have the space and structures to be able to do what you do but alas I live in an apartment and can't experiment. Your crosses and results are beautiful. Hopefully (if you haven't) you can register some with the Amaryllis Society (International?) and create some new cultivars.

Now an observation about the timing of your crosses and collecting pollen etc. Have you tried collecting the pollen in vials and then stored that (dry) in the fridge etc to prolong the life of the pollen until the other parent is ready? Once the pollen is ripe and starts to release you can get vials ready and then put packets of anti-dessicant in which will keep the pollen dry for when you store it. It's important to store the pollen in sealed containers if you do refigerate or even freeze. Under these conditions apparently, the pollen can be viable for up to a few months (refrigerated) or even a year or more (frozen).

Just food for thought - you might already know that.

Thank you for your most informative postings :-)

Gerard

Hello Gerard:

Thank you for your suggestion. As you already guessed I have knowledge of the subjct of pollen and anther storage, respectively.
But - I do not practise that and - I do NOT know the final, profound reason why I hesitate to.

I can explain this to you only by a practical reason: Like you I do not have a garden, just some square meters of area on the balcony. Each crossing I do NOT perform is a better crossing because I am close to a catastrophy of area need.

However, I have installed my amaryllogene kindergardens indoors and this costs me a lot of money for artificial lighting (fluirescent tubes for younger seedlings and metal halide high pressure discharge lamps fore the bigger ones.

So I perform crossbreedings follwing the opportunity and... my intuition.

For example - an offset from the mother plant of H.aulicum v.robustum is emitting a scape just now. AND: I already KNOW that I SHALL visit the local greens- and flower market to buy an expensive giant cut flower of this black red velvety hybrid I do not know ther name of simply to use its pollen on my species amaryllis! (It is NOT "Royal Velvet")

This way numerous of my crossbreedings are particular events dictated by contingency or should I be saying simply fortunate coincidence?!

The most lucky hazard I remember was the simultaneous blooming of one of my H.papilio and - of my first seedling of "Donau" x "Ambiance"
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which later proved to be the very best of the entire grex of 12 seedlings.

And on the spur of the moment I used it to pollinate H. papilio. The blooms which I obtained from 5 surviving good seedling (4 have bloomed until now) are simply uncomparable to anything, even if they resemble remarkably to the species crossing result I introduced in this thread.

And guess - the Ambiance pollen from which this breeding history was initiated was from a cut flower, too, which I purchased, outdoors, on an ice cold winter day - and I pollinated my "Donau" with it - just to see if the fresh, undried pollen HAD survived a day with temperatures close to 0°C!

Hans-Werner